Saban played defensive back at Kent State University. Upon his graduation in 1973, he had intended to pursue a career in automotive sales until the Kent State head coach, Don James, hired him as a graduate assistant. Saban worked his way up the coaching ladder through various collegiate and professional assistant roles before landing his first head-coaching job with the University of Toledo. He spent just one season there before moving on in 1991 to become the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) under head coach Bill Belichick.

Saban returned to the college game in 1995 as the head coach at Michigan State University, where he rebuilt the team over the course of five seasons. Following the 1999–2000 season, when Michigan State finished with a 9–2 record, he resigned and became the head coach at Louisiana State University (LSU). Saban had even more success during his five years at LSU, with five appearances in bowl games. Following a 13–1 campaign during the 2003–04 season, LSU defeated the University of Oklahoma in the BCS national championship (in the Sugar Bowl) to give Saban his first college national title. After spending one more year at LSU, he returned to the professional ranks as the head coach of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. The team had two mediocre seasons, however, marked by numerous personality clashes between Saban and his players, and he left to take over the University of Alabama in 2007.

Saban quickly rebuilt Alabama into a powerhouse with his sharp recruiting and defensive-strategy acumen. In his third season he led the Crimson Tide to a perfect 14–0 record, ending with a victory over the University of Texas in the national championship game. He followed that with consecutive national titles in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons. Alabama was the top seed in the inaugural College Football Playoff (CFP) after the 2014–15 regular season, but the team was upset in the Sugar Bowl semifinal by the Ohio State University. In 2015–16 Saban coached Alabama to a 14–1 record, capping off another successful season with an overwhelming 38–0 victory over his former school Michigan State in the CFP semifinal and a win over Clemson University in the national championship game.

Although his five total top-division college football championships still trailed the six national titles won by his Alabama predecessor Paul (“Bear”) Bryant, Saban’s success came after college football was established as a big business with millions of dollars spent at schools, making the sport more competitive (and with higher stakes) than ever before, leading some observers to start referring to Saban as the best college coach ever. In 2016 he guided Alabama to an undefeated regular season in which the dominant Crimson Tide topped the Associated Press college football poll from the first week of the season until the CFP championship game. There, Alabama lost a thrilling title-game rematch to Clemson.

Despite having suffered a regular-season loss and not appearing in the SEC championship game, Alabama was controversially selected to be one of the four CFP semifinalists following the 2017 season. The team again proved that it was the premier program of the early 21st century by easily defeating Clemson in the national semifinals and then beating the University of Georgia in the first CFP championship game to be decided in overtime. Saban’s coaching in the title game was especially bold as he benched his season-long starting quarterback at halftime in favour of true freshman Tua Tagovailoa, who rallied Alabama from a 13–0 deficit to its overtime victory.